It is faith
that makes you
sons, heirs,
Abraham’s heirs,
and it’s clear
all nations
will be blessed
by the faith
of Abraham,
the word knowing,
anticipating,
understanding
what was to come,
that all nations,
not only one,
would be blessed
by the faith
of one man.
Photograph by Billy Pasco via Unsplash. Used with permission.
Then another man, a stable yard worker, is killed. He’s struck by a policeman, Shadow’s closest friend on the force, in what looks like an accident – the man had too much to drink, fell down in the road by the pub, and was struck when the policeman drove by. But as the autopsy shows, the victim had already been hot on the back of the head.
And it’s a sensitive case, as Shadow’s chief constable keeps reminding him. Wealthy and titled people are involved, not to mention the local member of Parliament who was part of the hunting party. The Chief constable would prefer a nice, clean solution that doesn’t involved the duke or his extended family.
H L Marsay
But Shadow will do the job he faces. And the fact that his own policeman father as killed in the same area and with something like the same weapon more than 50 years before complicates the case for the DCI.
A Forgotten Shadow is the fifth DCI John Shadow mystery novel by British author H L Marsay. It’s a story filled with an unsolved crime, the Irish troubles of the 1980s and 1990s, horse racing, old (but not forgotten) tunnels, and a case that looks almost unsolvable. It’s a fast, entertaining read, with even a
Marsay is the author of six mystery novels in the DCI John Shadow series. Set in York, the characteristic features of each of the stories are a curmudgeonly DCI, his irrepressibly cheerful sergeant, a culinary tour of the city restaurants, café, and pubs (some of which actually exist), and an introduction to York’s colorful history and present. A member of the Crime Writers Association, she lives with her family in the city of York in England.
Related:
A Viking’s Shadow by H L Marsay.
A Ghostly Shadow by H L Marsay.
With only a day passing, the two armies moved from the Wilderness area to the region around Spotsylvania Court House and soon found themselves engaged again. Except this time, it was more of a push-me / pull-you series of engagements, with the Confederate lines generally holding (with one major exception) and with continuous punching of those lines by Union forces. Instead of three days, the action went on for two weeks, from May 8 to May 21.
To continue reading, please see my post day at Dancing Priest.
Whittier is known, now as well as when he was alive, as the “Abolitionist Poet.” His poetry included subjects and themes far beyond slavery, but it was those poems which made his reputation when he was alive. He lived a long life – almost 85 years. He saw his abolitionist sentiments become legal reality after a long, bitter, and destructive Civil War. He never married and had no family; he also outlived most of his friends and contemporaries.
To continue reading, please see my post at Tweetspeak Poetry.
That last response isn’t as easy as it sounds. The urgency of life can keep getting in the way.
Reading The Goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living: Selected Poems tells me I’ve met someone who’s discovered how to live each day alive in what she learned. But as Leslie Anne Bustard might likely say, knowing it and doing it can be difficult propositions, hard propositions. Sometimes really hard, so hard that they’re impossible without divine intervention. And that, of course, is the key – divine intervention. That’s what undergirds these poems – the knowledge that even as you face increasingly fewer days left in your life, you are not alone. You have family. You have friends and neighbors.
Leslie Anne Bustard
And, most importantly of all, you have God. Without God, your waning days can become a terrifying ordeal of not knowing. It’s scary enough even with God.
Bustard divides this collection into several sections. About half of the poems are grouped by seasons of the year – spring, summer, autumn, and winter. They’re followed by a group of ekphrastic poems inspired by works of art (she likes Rembrandt, Rouault, Cezanne, Monet, and Andrew Wyeth). These are followed by a group of found poems, the reworking of existing texts as new poems. And finally she has a group of tanka poems (poems of 31 syllables in five lines).
What do we learn from these poems?
Time is short. Use your gifts. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love God. Creation is a wonderful thing. Let people love you. Bad things, like cancer, can happen. Good things can happen. Bad things, like cancer coming back, can happen. But, in faith, we keep moving forward.
Thursday
Sunday night when I learned there was more cancer,
that a year of fighting had not held off another tumor,
the place inside me where I imagine my emotions reside
was a yawning cavern, empty.
I decided it was denial, and et myself sleep long
and nap and wander around.
I thought of praying.
But today,
with the expanse of blue sky above me
and the silver drip of icicles I passed while walking the dog,
I know I must be waking up.
For as I walked into the kitchen,
I thought of soups I want to make and
cookies I want to bake.
I looked for the Dickens book packed away in the basement.
I thought of pencil and paper and images and words.
I even hung the wooden red-and-white heart sign
from last Valentine’s Day and
made dinner for you and me.
Bustard is a contributor to several publications, including The Black Barn Online, Story Warren, Anselm Society, and Call Press, and a Fellowship member of The Cultivating Project. She was a co-editor for Wild Things and Castles in the Sky: A Guide to Choosing the Best Books for Children (2022). She’s a vice president at Square Halo and hosts their podcast series. She lives with her family in Pennsylvania.
Find a quiet day, or a hectic day, and read the poems of The Goodness of the Lord in the Land of the Living. You’ll discover, as I did that the world, even in its fallen state, contains so much beauty that it’s downright astonishing.
She finds the tomb empty,
the stone rolled away,
and she runs to tell
the others. They run
to the tomb and see
the cloths of linen,
wrappings of the body,
but the body gone.
They leave, but
she remains.
She remains, weeping,
until she sees the figures
in white, sitting
in the tomb. She speaks,
they respond. And she
turns to see a man,
perhaps the gardener;
she sees them, and then
she sees him.
Her first words after:
“I have seen Him,
I have seen the Lord.”
Because she remained.
Photograph by Kiwi Thompson via Unsplash. Used with permission.
If there’s a comic strip that I truly and deeply miss, it’s B.C. by Johnny Hart. For decades, the doings of those cave men and cave women kept me entertained with its subtle yet loving depiction of the foibles of our times. John Stonestreet at Breakpoint describes how Hart taught millions about Easter in the Sunday comics.
It was Roald Dahl, then it was Agatha Christie. There’s no telling which author is next for the sensitivity knife. Nadya Williams at Front Porch Republic has a proposal: how to update Homer foe sensitive modern readers.
More Good Reads
Life and Culture
Is Liberalism Worth Saving? – Patrick J. Deneen, Francis Fukuyama, Deirdre Nansen McCloskey, & Cornel West at Harper’s Magazine.
‘I Felt Bullied’: Mother of Child Treated at Transgender Center Speaks Out – Emily Yoffe at The Free Press.
News Media
The Shredding of Middle West Newspapers – Jon Kauch at Middle West Review.
Writing and Literature
Twelve of the best novels about journalism – John Sturgis at The Spectator.
The Bombadil Enigma, Part Two: The Mroczkowski Letter – Keith Mathison.
Faith
The Essential Church Documentary – The Cripplegate.
What C.S. Lewis Got Wrong about the Cursing Psalms – Trevin Wax at The Gospel Coalition.
Every Sunday is Easter – Joe Holland at Sola Eccelsia.
The crucifixion gap: why it took hundreds of years for art to depict Jesus dying on the cross – Robyn Whitaker at The Conversation.
‘Art Will Touch Lives’: An Aging Farmer Adds a New Dimension to his Ministry – Max Heine at Front Porch Republic.
Poetry
The Cross Speaks – Sally Ito at Kingdom Poets (D.S. Martin).
Ice Cream Sky – Havalah Pierce at Story Warren.
Ukraine
Putin’s pals: The world has not united against Russia – Damien Phillips at The Critic Magazine.
Andrey Kurkov brings clarity to the Ukraine invasion – Fred Skulthorp at The Spectator.
Young Ukraine: Ukraine's national identity has come a long way – Ken Moscowitz at American Purpose.
American Stuff
Shiloh: Day to Night on the Battlefield – Chris Heisey at Emerging Civil War.
I Know That My Redeemer Lives – Keith & Kristyn Getty, Laura Story
